


Charred

by Lilaciliraya



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Tattoos, Angst, Basically, Blood, Car Accidents, Fucked Up, Gen, Growing Up, Gun Violence, Hurt Spencer Reid, M/M, Mental Health Issues, One-Sided Attraction, One-Sided Relationship, POV Spencer Reid, Platonic Soulmates, Romantic Soulmates, Sad Spencer Reid, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Esteem Issues, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Trust Issues, Wet Clothing, a bad guy dies, and uh.. kinda, but actually, ha, i guess, lol, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 17:10:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12939885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilaciliraya/pseuds/Lilaciliraya
Summary: Spencer Reid never really wanted a soulmate.(or the one where spencer always calls his boss aaron hotchner in his head and is a very unreliable narrator)





	Charred

**Author's Note:**

> another 1000 words a day thing that happened. i think this is my first hotch and reid? anyways let me know what you think. i might actually fix it because i kind of like it but i lost steam at the end. after finals though.. definitely after finals.

Spencer joins the BAU and it is like a dream. And there are personalities everywhere, and they are wide and heavy and imposing. And he feels so small; he always feels small.

That’s why his shoulders curl together and his chin dips down to protect his chest. 

He’s only being practical, is all.

And there’s this tattoo on his hip.

And he hates it.

-

When he was seven, Spencer fell on the playground or maybe he was pushed or maybe it doesn’t even matter, but what does is that the bruise on his hip never really went away and instead it seemed to concentrate and grow darker and form some words and then- there it was.

And it seemed like a cosmic joke, to this kid.

He had a soulmark; he knew that was what it was, even then.

He had a soulmark on his hip and he was only seven, and nobody was ever going to want him anyways because everything he did just had to be wrong.

He didn’t tell a soul.

-

His boss’s name is Aaron Hotchner and Spencer thinks he’s the most terrifying of all, even if sometimes he thinks he can see him smile to himself.

He is the most terrifying thing Spencer has ever encountered, though, because the first words they exchanged were familiar. They had been the words he’d been wary of since he was seven years old.

And Spencer is lucky, he guesses, because Aaron Hotchner has a wife and a life and a smile and maybe one day they’ll have a kid together, and his soulmate will go home to a family and a white picket fence, and that’s understandable.

Spencer understands. That’s safe.

That’s all Spencer ever wanted, is to be spared the pain of this whole mess. So Aaron Hotchner is all he could have dreamed of and he doesn’t even blink when the words are spoken and that’s perfect.

But still, the threat of how badly it could have gone- the realization, the surprise, the apprehension, the way that he worried his soulmate would say, “why not?” and try to learn to love him- to try to see all that he is as endearing, maybe, or something tolerable- and give it a good effort, and maybe make him believe that there really is a match for everyone, that he could ever deserve anything like a soulmate and then rip it all away one day- it coats his throat in tar so thick that his eyes start to water when he thinks about it.

It could have gone like that.

So Aaron Hotchner’s shadow is the tallest, the darkest, the most pressing.

-

He cried all night when he realized. He cried because he was only seven and he wasn’t supposed to have a soulmark yet, he cried because he was always different and even if there is a soulmate out there for him they will never be able to love him.

He cried the tears of a lonely child, a scared child, because that’s all he was, then.

And then he practiced slitting the throat of that thing growing inside of him, tight and warm, of the little hope that was burrowing in. Because the longer he could keep that dead, the less disappointment he’d have to deal with later.

It was all very practical, of course.

-

He’s in a car with Aaron Hotchner one day driving back to the station at the end of a local case. It’s raining and the road is slick and the car in front of them swerves and-

Then he is sprawled against the door of the SUV and everything is loud and slow and heavy and he pushes his way out of the vehicle and stumbles towards a tree which he uses to help hold his weight up from collapsing in the mud. Aaron Hotchner is also out of the car and he looks okay and his shirt is white and soaked through with water already and he can see through it and there’s this dark spot on his chest that looks like-

Aaron Hotchner has a tattoo and Spencer sees it, and it’s his, not Haley’s, and he inhales sharply, immediately feeling like he’s about to puke.

And Aaron Hotchner looks at him, and then follows his eyes, and whips his head back up once he understands. Spencer can’t breathe but he tries to smile anyways- tries, gags in the middle, turns and empties his stomach in the grass. When he turns back to Aaron Hotchner, he sees a look on his face like terror, and he finishes his smile and laughs. 

He knew that nobody could ever want him back, but it still hurts. It hurts it hurts, he hurts. He thought the fact that his soulmate didn’t bother lying was a good one, but now it hurts how much his soulmate didn’t even care.

It hurts- how his soulmate is looking at him like even his having knowledge of their soulmate status is utterly abhorrent, like he could have kept himself from acknowledging Spencer for his whole life, probably, and it still wouldn’t be long enough. Aaron Hotchner is looking at him like he is worse than nothing, like he wasn’t even worth trying.

If his soulmate is that disgusted by him, did he ever really stand a chance? Was he too hopeful still, even though he tried so hard to crush the seeds of it before they germinated into something more? He’d always worried that his soulmate would try to love him and fail, always thought that was the worst case; it was inevitable but there would be nothing more hurtful than that, than the outcome he already knew.

He was wrong.

This is the worst case. His soulmate cannot bear him knowing the truth of their bond; his soulmate could not even let him down gently; his soulmate looks like he never wants to see him again. Aaron Hotchner looks like he never wanted anybody to know, like maybe he is so angry at the tattoo on his skin that he pushes bruises into his own flesh some nights just to cover it up, like he’d do anything to sever their connection. 

Like maybe he’d get married and have a child with somebody else, a woman, and he would never tell his soulmate the truth, never tell anyone the truth.

And Spencer is so angry at himself, so ashamed of letting his hopes up anyways, of overestimating himself- he always overestimates himself, doesn’t he? But Spencer could never be angry at his soulmate because he would probably hate to be tied to himself forever as well- in fact, he does. He hates how he cannot escape the truth of who he is. He hates how he is too much all the time and never enough of what he is supposed to be; he hates how he is always the odd one out. 

All of his unhappiness stems from his proximity to his own charred soul, he’s sure of it. So how could he blame his soulmate for wanting nothing to do with him?

He cannot stop laughing, except for the times when he chokes on the hard lump in his throat and the heavy tears falling down his cheeks. It’s humiliating, so he turns and walks away sooner rather than later. 

His soulmate doesn’t say a word.

It takes him an hour and seventeen minutes to get home but his heart still aches when he unlocks his front door.

-

He’s okay- really, nothing more than a few scrapes and bruises. 

He assumes his boss is also alive and well because nobody calls to inform him otherwise.

-

Spencer refuses to use his vacation days.

It’s his own damn fault that he allowed himself to hope, that he didn’t realize how generous he was being to his redeeming qualities in all of his considerations, that he expected somebody to try for him, that he thought he was inherently worth that. He shouldn’t have expected anything at all; he knew that it’s hope that really hurts but he still couldn’t manage his expectations. And then he had to overreact in front of his boss, in front of his soulmate. He couldn’t control his emotions. He should have been able to, should have been better.

This is why he’ll never want you, he whispers to himself from dark corner of his mind. 

This is why nobody will ever want you.

He can’t use his vacation days but he can’t face his boss either, can’t face anyone- not the other agents looking down at him from under their ten foot shadows, not the team that deserves so much more than he’ll ever be able to give, not the families of the victims that are counting on him, that place their trust in him even though he’s never able to save anyone, not really.

Spencer has to reevaluate his own worth and he doesn’t like what he finds.

-

When he was eleven years old, Spencer's classmates tricked him and stripped him bare and tied him up for everyone to see. And they all watched and they all laughed and nobody even tried to help. And then they noticed the mark on his hip and laughed some more, because surely it was fake. Nobody has a mark when they are 12 years old, and oh, isn't he just so pathetic, giving himself a fake mark, and all. 

They were cruel; kids can be so needlessly cruel. 

-

When he gets to work the day after everything changed he keeps his head down like always- except for when he passes Garcia, she always likes when he smiles at her. And then JJ comes rushing in with a case and everyone is off to work and he’s swept away in the routine.

It isn't so bad after all. 

And it gives him hope that everything can return to how it's always been; it makes him sad but at least Hotch has gotten over the way his secrets were ripped from him. Maybe he was only upset because he thought Spencer would try to force a relationship on him. 

He won’t.

It's obvious that he overreacted; he always overreacts.

He just doesn't know how to stop himself from feeling all of these unreasonable things.

-

Aaron Hotchner gets a divorce and Spencer isn't sure what to feel. 

-

He remembers that day, when he was on the goalpost, and when he thinks about it he always remembers the smell of it. There were tears and snot and they blocked his sense of smell but not well enough- he can still smell the sting of rubbing alcohol from the cloth they used to try to wash off his mark. 

The smell of it makes him gag to this day because most of the time he still wishes it would have come off; he's still convinced he would be better off without this stain on his skin, this reminder of his fate.

He's always been a disappointment and he used to wish that one day he could be more than that. But alcohol- the smell of rubbing alcohol always reminds him that he never will be. 

When their first plan failed the football team didn't leave. They tried again. Persistence, they said, was key- and he has their football coach to thank for those words in his nightmares, he's sure. They pulled out a Swiss army knife and decided to show him how pathetic he was, cut a frown- two eyes and a sagging mouth- into his skin, right over that tattoo he had done, poor kid, it's so sad that nobody will ever love him, can't blame him, can you? 

They all thought it was so funny. 

The other thing he will always remember: rubbing alcohol in open wounds burns like hell. 

-

Hotch has a bottle of vodka in his office and it’s so out of character that Spencer sometimes thinks that he knows, somehow, and that he’s trying to send a message. 

He would have expected scotch or whiskey- if anything at all. But the smell wouldn’t be the same, if that was the case.

Sometimes Spencer imagines being invited in and sitting across the desk from his supposed soulmate. Aaron Hotchner twists open the bottle- and it smells like- and pours him a glass and he takes it and drinks and it burns all the way down.

His imagination is not a fan of subtlety.

-

Morgan asks him what's up one day- asks why Aaron Hotchner is acting odd, always glancing Spencer's way. He tells him that he has no idea and suggests that he consults the source himself. 

Once he's looking out for it he catches his boss's eyes on him eight times in an hour while he's sitting at his desk. 

He wonders how else he can make himself invisible since he clearly isn't doing it well enough. 

-

His mother had a soulmark that matched his father’s. But she got sick and it didn't mean enough for him to stay and if that can happen then does it really mean anything at all?

After he left she burned it away with a hot knife because she was convinced the government had implanted a device under her skin and was trying to control her.

He came home from his humiliation on the football field to find her rinsing the wound in the kitchen sink while he snuck up to his room. It wasn't until the next day that he found out what had happened, the scabs on his own hip itching all the while.

Spencer still isn't sure if that happened during one of her episodes or not.

-

Nobody else knows about his mark. 

But he chose a job that involves guns and violence and killers and sometimes even the good guys need to fire a few bullets in order to save lives. And the unsub’s blood is warm where it splatters across his body and it is red and loud and everywhere and it is screaming at him and it won’t stop and his hands are shaking and-

He rips his shirt off of his body and uses it to start scrubbing, ignoring the tears threatening to fall in front of everyone. And because he is losing his edge in everything all at once his invisibility also fails, and the hem of his pants rides down as he is scrubbing wildly at his skin. There it is. His mark. A little warped from the raised scar running through it but still clear enough.

Just like that everybody knows.

He curses his soulmate for being so obvious.

-

“I’m Aaron Hotchner. Welcome to the team.”

“Spencer Reid.”

-

He tries to ignore it but Aaron Hotchner won’t let him; it’s always Aaron Hotchner. He calls after him- “Spencer! Reid, will you just listen? Reid- Spencer? Where are you going?” 

Which is actually a good question because he has no clue, the only way for him to get back to his apartment where he can be alone involves getting in one of the team’s SUVs and then the jet, both of which require him to be near the man he is currently trying to escape. 

He has no idea what he is doing but he can’t make himself stop and think. He’s terrified and the only words in head are I’m sorry I’m sorry I’msorry I’msorryI’msorryI’msorry-

He turns and says it, “I’m sorry.” It’s barely a whisper but Aaron Hotchner freezes; he knows because he sees the shadow stop creeping up on him. He doesn’t lift his head from his feet.

“Why didn’t you say anything? Why are you sorry? I thought-” 

And then there was silence. 

“You have my mark. I have yours. Do you not- It’s okay if you don’t want anything between us. I just need to know, Spencer. Can we just talk?”

“I’m sorry.”

Aaron Hotchner sighs like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders, then, “Okay.”

Spencer can’t hear anything but the rush of blood in his ears.

-

He’s okay. He’s always okay.

-

They don’t talk. They should, but Spencer refuses to open his door. 

He does use his vacation days, this time. It’s only because he needs to visit his mother. She’s on new medication and needs a familiar face. 

-

Aaron Hotchner is at his door. Again. This time, though, he pretended to be delivering food and Spencer opened the door and now all he can think to say is, “Hotch.”

“Aaron, Spencer. I think right now you should call me Aaron.” And with that, Aaron Hotchner steps inside his apartment and closes the door behind him.

Spencer swallows.

“I’m on vacation. I’m not supposed to be back until Monday.” 

“You’re supposed to be in Las Vegas.”

“I- uh. Yeah. Why did you come here then?”

“You didn’t even book a flight.”

“Garcia?”

Aaron Hotchner nods from where he is standing in his living room- in his apartment- right over the spot where he sat on his floor staring at the ceiling for two hours yesterday contemplating a job in biomedical engineering research where he could work in a lab in solitude and never have another boss or a soulmate ever again.

“Spencer,” Aaron Hotchner says, and now he sounds serious, and-

-

Aaron Hotchner wants to try to love him. Like a test drive in a new car- yes, I’d like to take her for a spin please, get a feel for how she rides- no, the brakes are a bit too touchy, maybe I’ll go with an older model instead, more reliable- boy, though, was that a rush.

Spencer tells him that it’s a bad idea, tries to convince him that nothing has to change, makes his soulmate angry and frustrated and confused and he thinks that maybe he finally gets it, then. He points out how they’re disagreeing, says that he’ll always make him unhappy, explains to him that he’s not at all what he wants.

This is what Spencer always expected. He’s determined not to get hurt again and he doesn’t understand why his soulmate doesn’t see how badly this will end.

They don’t reach an understanding. Work is-

Work is tense, after that.

-

He wants everything to go back to how it was- predictable and safe and comfortably lonely. He wants to be able to go to work without his muscles shaking in anticipation underneath his skin. He wants to be able to look at his boss without hyperventilating. Most of all, he wishes that soulmates didn’t exist because then none of this would ever have happened. 

In a world without soulmates he could keep everyone out and tell himself that one day, if he ever decided that he would like to, he could go out and date. And there would be no pressure for a serious relationship and no reason for anybody to look twice at him if they saw something they didn’t like and it wouldn’t hurt when they left because he could tell himself that next time- next time he’d find someone that would stay. 

And if he scared off the only person in the world who was supposed to love him he would never have to know. And he could be happy even if he was all alone.

In this world, soulmates exist.

And Spencer is all alone and he is miserable because there is this pressure on his shoulders all the time trying to make him into somebody that he is not, trying to make him lovable.

-

The first time he said it out loud was to Garcia. It was terrifying but she was safe and he wanted somebody to know; he thought maybe it would be a little easier to carry if somebody else was helping, too. 

It's the fact that really sealed his fate. Maybe he would meet somebody who could overlook his quirks and eccentricities and deal with his misunderstandings but- one day-

Schizophrenia is genetically passed. 

-

“I already love you!” he hears through his door. This time, he did not let Aaron Hotchner into his apartment. “We've worked together for years now. I'm not going to just decide one day that you aren't what I want. I know you, Spencer, and I'm your soulmate.”

His hands are over his ears like a child but he can still hear it, every word. 

“That doesn't mean anything!” 

He leaves.

-

Aaron Hotchner does not go away. So maybe- he thinks maybe he'll have to sacrifice his own life for a little while, just until his soulmate finishes playing house.

He won't let himself believe it, though. If he doesn't believe in it it won't hurt so much when it ends. 

-

He gives Aaron Hotchner everything he wants but it isn't enough. 

And now his soulmate is mad and now he is mad, too. “This is what you wanted! I gave you everything you told me you wanted! If it's not enough then just get out! Get out of my life! Leave me alone!” Spencer yells finally, chest heaving and spit flying, eyes wild. 

“I just want you! What don't you understand about that?” 

He doesn't understand any of it, is the thing.

He doesn’t understand what else he has to give.

“Spencer, I just want you. I want all of you,” he says and his voice is soft now, and gentle. “I want you to believe me when I say that I want you and that I want to be with you and I want you to stop holding back.”

Spencer can hear the way he’s disguising his impatience like he’s talking to a child and he doesn’t appreciate the comparison. “I can’t give you anything else! I need you to believe me when I say that; I can’t and I will never be able to.”

Sometimes the most beautiful things are razed to the ground by chance before they ever touch reality. 

\- 

Aaron Hotchner is his boss and maybe that is all he will ever be because he decides to give Spencer some time, finally. Spencer takes that as notice that his soulmate has given up on him, that he’s finally free to live without the constant fear.

They work together like a dream, catching killer after killer without pause. A few months go by with neither of them hurt on the job, which has to be a new record. He thinks that maybe it’s a sign that this can be okay- that everything can be okay.

-

A soulmate, the perfect match, is, if you forget all of the fairy tales and popular views on the ideal romance, essentially just a mutually beneficial relationship.

All either of them have ever wanted is to make a difference. 

Together, they save lives every day.

-

Without belief, there is nothing.

But sometimes the emptiness is meaningful.

-


End file.
